Set Up Appointment Topics and Appointment Templates

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
  • Create appointment topics and appointment templates.
  • Assign required skills to appointment templates.
  • Assign appointment templates to service territories and appointment topics.

Configure Appointment Topics

Work type groups (Salesforce Scheduler-speak for appointment topics) are the functional domains that service resources like Ryan and Sri are specialized in handling—for example, wealth management, financial advisory service, and client servicing.

To help Fola’s team use work type groups (appointment topics) effectively, Matt must work through some initial settings by defining the Additional Information field under the Work Type Group object’s Fields & Relationships.

The Additional Information page for the Work Type Group object, with appointment topics for Ryan Dobson entered
  1. In Setup, click the Object Manager tab, and select Work Type Group.
  2. Select Fields & Relationships, then Additional Information.
  3. In the Additional Information Picklist Values section, click New.
  4. Enter the required values. Each value should be on its own line. Matt enters these values for Ryan and Sri:
    Ryan
    		 Sri
    Private Banking 
    Retirement Planning 
    General Investing
    		 Document Review
  5. Save the changes.

Create Appointment Topics

Having sorted out the settings situation, Matt now gets to creating the actual appointment topics (or work type groups, in Salesforce Scheduler-speak).
  1. From App Launcher, find and select Work Type Groups, and then click New.
  2. Enter a Work Type Group name. For Ryan, and the other financial advisors like him, Matt calls this Wealth Management.
  3. Set group type to Default.
  4. Select Active.
  5. Select Additional Information options for this work type group. Since this is for wealth management, Matt makes a couple of initial selections, which can always be updated later.
    • General Investing
    • Retirement Planning
  6. Save the changes.

Configure Appointment Templates

Work types (Salesforce Scheduler-speak for appointment templates) are planning aids that help organize and standardize the working day and appointment times of people like Ryan and Sri. They help determine things like the estimated duration of an appointment and whether time before and after the appointment must be blocked off for pre- and post-work. Matt can also set up the operating hours for an appointment template, but that’s for another, well, time! (More on that in the next unit.)

To help Fola’s team use work types effectively, Matt must work through some initial settings by defining the Default Appointment Type field under the Work Type object’s Fields & Relationships.

The Add Picklist Values page for the Default Appointment Type field (in the Work Type Group object), with values for Cumulus Bank’s Pittsburgh CBD branch entered.
  1. In Setup, click the Object Manager tab, and select Work Type.
  2. Select Fields & Relationships, then Default Appointment Type.
  3. In the Default Appointment Type Picklist Values section, click New.
  4. Enter the required values. Each value should be on its own line. Matt enters these values for Cumulus Bank’s Pittsburgh CBD branch:
    • Phone
    • At a Branch
    • Video
  5. Save the changes.
  6. On the Default Appointment Type page, edit the API names for the entries in the Default Appointment Type Picklist Values section and save the changes.
Note

Note

The API name determines which utility icon is assigned to what appointment type. (API names can be different from their corresponding labels.) Icons provide visual context and enhance usability. The list of supported utility icons is documented here: https://www.lightningdesignsystem.com/icons/#utility.


Matt assigns the following icons to the Pittsburgh CBD branch’s appointment types.

Appointment Type
 Icon
Phone
 Call
At a Branch
 People
Video
 Video

Create Appointment Templates

With Matt having worked through the required settings, Fola sets about creating the appointment templates (or work types, in Salesforce Scheduler-speak) for her branch.The New Work Type page with appointment template details for Pittsburg CBD wealth managers entered
  1. From the Work Types tab, click New.
  2. Enter a name and description. Try to use a name that helps users quickly understand the nature of the records that can be created from the work type. For Ryan and Sri’s appointments, Fola enters Wealth Management (USA ET).
  3. Enter an Estimated Duration, which is how long the appointment is estimated to take, and a Duration Type of minutes or hours.
  4. Optionally, provide time for meeting preparation by specifying Block Time Before Appointment and Block Time After Appointment. Specify the units of time as minutes or hours.
  5. Optionally, enter Timeframe Start, Timeframe Start Unit, Timeframe End, and Timeframe End Unit. These fields control the availability of the appointment slots. Fola sets Timeframe Start and Timeframe Start Unit to 2 days to indicate that the branch won’t take appointments less than 2 days away. This means that if an appointment booking is attempted on June 3 at 4 PM, Salesforce Scheduler would not show any time slots available before June 5, 4 PM.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Optionally, set up operating hours for the appointment template by selecting Add Time Slots in the Operating Hours component. This defines the availability of the specialists handling this specific topic at the branch during the day or week.
Note

Note

If you don't select operating hours for a work type—the work type is considered to be always available, based on the branch’s operating hours.

Once Matt is done creating appointment templates, he makes them usable by associating them with specific employee specializations, branch locations, and appointment topics (in Salesforce Scheduler-speak: skills, service territories, and work type groups, respectively).

Assign Required Skills to Appointment Templates

Next, Matt and Fola want to make sure that appointments are assigned to service resources with the right skills. For example, wealth management appointments must automatically be directed to financial advisors like Ryan. This saves the bank time and keeps its business processes consistent.

Fola gets cracking on this task.
  1. Go to the appointment template (work type record) for which service resources must be configured. For Ryan and Sri, Fola clicks the appointment template that she just created: Wealth Management (USA ET).
  2. From the Related tab in the Skill Requirements related list, click New.
  3. Select a skill.
  4. Enter a skill level from 0 to 99.99 based on how your business measures skill level. This sets up the required skill level to staff the appointment.
  5. Save the changes.

Assign Appointment Templates to Service Territories

Fola now maps all appointment templates (work types) to corresponding branch locations (service territories).

The New Service Territory Work Type page with the Wealth Management appointment template mapped to its corresponding HQ branch location.
  1. From the Related tab on Work Types or Service Territories, click New on the Service Territory Work Type related list.
  2. Select a Service Territory and Work Type. For Cumulus Bank’s Pittsburgh CBD branch, Fola picks HQ Branch and Wealth Management (USA ET), respectively.
  3. Save the changes.

Assign Appointment Templates to Appointment Topics

Finally, Fola maps all appointment templates (work types) to corresponding appointment topics (work type groups).

The New Work Type Group Member page with the Wealth Management appointment template mapped to its corresponding appointment topic.
  1. From the Related tab on Work Types or Work Type Groups, click New on the Work Type Group Members related list.
  2. Select a Work Type Group and Work Type. Fola picks the following pairs:
    • Wealth Management and Wealth Management (US ET). This takes care of Ryan and his wealth manager friends in HQ.
    • Client Servicing and Wealth Management (US ET). This takes care of Sri and other client associates like her at HQ.
  3. Save the changes.